I think that the problem with Gogol Bordello is that no matter how frenzied or impassioned they get at any given moment, at heart they’re a trick band — it’s hard for me to imagine a world with room for more than one or two gypsy-punk groups. And, like most trick bands, they’ve got less range than either they or you would prefer.
Pretty much each song on Super Taranta!, their most recent full-length, does the same thing. Each one chugs along with a amped-up polka beat (one-TWO! one-TWO!), a violin that sounds like it’s being piped in from your local college theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, and a heaping handful of refugee accordions. The rhythm sometimes changes for the verses, but it almost always moves back into the oompah lockstep during the choruses. Some guitars wander in, of course — again, generally on the verses — but they rarely predominate over the other elements. Lead singer Eugene Hütz’s voice doesn’t help matters — he sounds sort of like how you’d imagine a SNL sketch involving Will Ferrell as a drunk Hungarian would go, especially as he’s invariably backed by a small mob of euro-thugs who punctuate the off-beats with various shouts.
I don’t have a problem with bands that use elements of this kind of neo-traditional instrumentation; I quite liked Khartoum Heroes back in the day, for instance, and I still maintain a great devotion for Zebda. But, at least on Super Taranta!, Gogol Bordello take their chosen formula to such an over-the-top extreme that it’s nearly impossible to take them seriously. One might counter that they aren’t meant to be taken seriously, but the unfortunate fact is that they’re not very funny either. I suppose that the hyperkinetic cartoon frenzy of, say, “Wonderlust King” is something I can easily imagine myself putting on a college mix CD, just so that I could have the pleasure of seeing the recipient’s face take on that classic “What the…?” face when it came on. But I started to get impatient around track two of this album, waiting for something else to happen. In case you were wondering, I wasn’t really rewarded. “Dub The Frequencies Of Love” was kind of fun, I guess — the music reminded me a lot of Zebda circa Essence Ordinaire, actually — and that was probably the high point for me.
I think maybe the issue is that Gogol Bordello are definitely a small-dose band for me — and at 65 minutes, this is definitely not a small-dose album. Yes, there’s lots of energy, and I don’t doubt that their live show is every bit as good as advertised, but all of the frenetic action is devoted to doing the same. freaking. thing. over and over again. The brushstrokes are too broad, the shading too lacking. I guess it’s supposed to be a party album, but it winds up being an album for the party where you get backed into a corner by the loud guy with onions on his breath who won’t stop talking for an hour while your girlfriend leaves with some local lothario.
The album’s getting killer reviews from basically everyone but me, so if you want to consider me an unenlightened killjoy, you’re more than welcome, and you won’t hurt my feelings. But the desperately peppy monotony of this album gave me a worse headache than any Einsturzende Neubauten record I’ve ever heard — not that I want to give Hütz any ideas. I think, as much as I didn’t care for his gypsy punk, I’d like his gypsy industrial less.
Label: Side One Dummy
Release date: July 10, 2007
Rating: 3/10
3 Comments »
A Gogol Bordello concert is an amazing experience, and having seen them 4 or 5 times. I was lucky enough to see them a while back at a show in Denver when all of 20 people showed up, and they put the same intense energy into that show as they have when 1000s of people show up.
Are their recorded albums very good? Not really, this is a live band, and I think the reviewers who give great reviews of these albums have had their opinion tainted by seeing the live show first. But unfortunately I don’t think reviewing this record poorly is fair. The first couple of times I saw these guys they DIDN’T EVEN HAVE RECORDS. I think recording an album was foisted onto them by the record business.
Go out and see Gogol Bordello if you get a chance! If you had a good time at the show buy the CD afterwards.
I know what you mean–i feel that way about Captured! By Robots. I’d never buy or listen to a C!BR disc, but i’ll always catch them live.
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Comment by hotshotrobot — July 24, 2007 @ 7:22 am
Nicely done, Sam. At least, i’m assuming–i still haven’t heard these guys. But your review touched on something that has been driving me mad for the last few years about bands making the (noble) attempt to bring something new or unique to rock music–those bands tend to coast on whatever genre trapping or gimmick they thrust upon themselves and have a hard time breaking out of it in order to grow as musicians or add variety to their songs (see !!! for a depressing example). Since i haven’t heard the Bordello yet, i’m taking your word that this is the trap they’ve fallen into, but since so many others have, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out i agree with you whenever i do finally hear them.
Why can’t more bands take Man…or Astroman?s example and learn how to evolve from a genre band into their own thing? Follow them from Is it…Man or Astroman? through A Spectrum of Infinite Scale and you’ll see a band that knows how to evolve and keep things fresh from one album to the next.